


Found at Sea

by theriveroflight



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aromantic, Boats and Ships, Fantasy, Gen, NaNoWriMo, Nonbinary Character, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Queer Themes, Shapeshifting, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24688618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: TheAcanthusroams the seas. Her four crew members can weather anything thrown at them.None of them have any idea what's about to come in the next storm, though.
Relationships: Everyone & Everyone, Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Non-Binary Character, this second one is a qpr
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Found at Sea

**Author's Note:**

> I...wrote this in November of 2019. The only reason that this is so far after November is because I'm anxious and think that having a lot of beta comments reflects badly on my writing. It doesn't. But my brain is a bastard. This is a really self-indulgent story, because it's queer fantasy and also I practiced using my own neopronouns on one of the characters here.
> 
> Updates will hopefully happen weekly, but that depends on my mental fortitude for getting through all the comments on these chapters. The chapter count should be right. Again, I wrote this all for NaNoWriMo, so it's all pre-written for the updating.
> 
> Thanks to MiniNoire and Vortex for beta'ing for me.
> 
> Warnings in this chapter: storms, mentioned nakedness (non-graphic), unintentional misgendering (POV character isn't out and gets misgendered by other characters as a result), food, mentions of sex (an aroallo and an aroacespec person are in a QPR and do have sex), mentions of romance (POV character is in a romantic relationship)

They had been out at sea for a long time, so Priscilla, who happened to be on the watch that night, thought that the thing she saw in the ocean wasn’t real. Maybe it was just a fish.

But it wasn’t just a fish. She could see it trying to fly out of the sea, wings beating against the heavy wind.

By all rights, Priscilla knew she should really be inside (after all, Leilani would say that if she was in danger, then abandon duty - even if that ‘danger’ was just a bad cold), but she needed some time away from Liang. She loved Avia and Leilani, but they didn’t know about her being a  _ her _ , not him. They still thought of her as Aquila, the  _ guy  _ who was in a relationship with Liang.

She didn’t even know what Liang would think. Liang didn’t like girls, she only liked guys.

The fish-bird creature was still struggling against the storm as the harsh waves swept over it.

Priscilla had a hypothesis on what it was. More accurately - _ who _ .

She tossed a life ring down to it. She could always pull it up, but if her hypothesis was right…

Priscilla heard a noise that wasn’t the storm but from the expansive seas below.

Pulling up the ring, she worked hard to fight gravity and to fight against the tide that threatened to pull it back down. She cleared the height of the waves, and the bird flew up and collapsed on the deck.

The bird melted into a person was hacking up a storm afterwards. Their cloak was over them, but they weren’t wearing anything else.

Oh. Oh gosh. Okay, she may have suspected, but she didn’t expect to be right.

Deep breaths. Ask questions later, should probably get the two of them out of the storm fast.

“Let’s get you something warm to drink and out of the storm, hmm?” Priscilla said, reaching out a hand to help them up. “This is the  _ Acanthus.  _ We’re all friendly here.” The person did not speak.

The person did, however, take her hand, and slowly rose to their feet with her help.

* * *

The two of them head belowdecks, and she grabs a towel for both of them as well as clothes for the stranger.

“Take off your cloak - you can’t wear something wet if you’re going to warm up.”

They have moderate length hair, but something about their stature says distinctly  _ not  _ a girl.

“I-I-I’m Carmen. Xe and xem, p-p-please,” the now-proclaimed Carmen said.

“Priscilla, she and her. But I haven’t told the others yet, so if you’re talking about me with them, use he and him until I’m out. They’ll get the gist just from he and him - I’m the only person with those pronouns on board.”

Xe wrapped xemself in the towel and dried xemself off. Carmen was still shivering from the storm, but at least xe was dry.

“Hey.” She heard a soft voice. It wasn’t Liang; Liang would have followed up that greeting with a term of endearment. She turned her head towards the sound, and Leilani was in front of her.

“Who’s that?” Leilani continued, the words coming out a little more clipped now that Priscilla had noticed her.

“I rescued xem out of the sea. Xe was struggling for a bit, and I was out, so I rescued xem. Carmen, meet Leilani, the owner of this here vessel and captain. Leilani, this is Carmen.”

“Pleased to have you aboard.” Leilani, ever the professional, holds out her hand for a handshake. Carmen accepts, but xir expression seemed stiff and xe looked uncomfortable at the prospect of doing so. Priscilla has no idea what happened to lead xem here; something that will send a person fleeing into a storm in the middle of the ocean as a shapeshifter can’t be good.

“Avia’s asleep?” she asks Leilani. 

“I didn’t want to wake them,” Leilani answers.

“Alright. I’ll show Carmen to a chamber for the night.”

* * *

The next morning, the storm had passed, leaving in its wake a bank of dove-gray clouds and a certain peacefulness that one rarely sees.

She got up for breakfast, from the bed where her lover had already gotten out. Her indent was still visible on the mattress, but it was Liang’s day for breakfast duty.

Liang had been pretty good about breakfast, too. They were starting to run out of food, though, so she was interested in what Liang would come up with. 

There were a lot of things that she disliked about Liang, but her cooking skills weren’t one of them.

The thing is, she did love her. Liang wasn’t a bad person, but Priscilla got the feeling that if she were to come out, things could potentially be  _ very _ awkward. It was a boat. There was no space to just  _ be  _ by yourself, hence last night’s outing.

There was no place to cool off when they fought. Because if she came out, it wasn’t an  _ if  _ they would fight. It was  _ when  _ they’d fight. On-board relationships were, in a nutshell, hard.

Neither Leilani or Avia really experienced the feeling necessary for a traditional relationship, but they had a different kind of love from most people’s. Priscilla would love to have something resembling that - a relationship in which both parties are willing to weather whatever storms come their way.

She headed out to breakfast.

* * *

She didn’t expect to be out before Leilani and Avia. Liang and Carmen were casually chatting as the girl worked on breakfast, some sort of potato thing based on the scraps?

“Potato pancakes,” Liang told her. “I got the recipe from Avia. Not exactly the most traditional of occasions, but we don’t have much left. We need to get to shore and restock.”

“Where will you be docking?” Carmen inquired, fidgeting in xir seat. There was a reason behind xir asking, but Priscilla didn’t know it - just sensed that there  _ was  _ one.

“Probably the nearest shore. Leilani’s the one in charge of that.” Liang was kind of distant, her focus on the cooking.

They made small talk in the kitchen until Leilani and Avia came out. They came from the same room - they didn’t always sleep in the same room. There were certain  _ implications  _ that came when they did. Priscilla tried not to pay attention to it, because most of the time they tried to be good about it.

“Who’s the new person again?” Avia asked.

“That’s Carmen,” Leilani explained. “I told you about xem when I came back to bed last night.”

“Oh.” The realization dawned on Avia.

Carmen waved. “Yup, that’s me.”

“This is Avia,” Leilani introduced. “They're my partner and first mate.”

“Pleasure,” Carmen said.

“It’s all mine,” Avia replied back, a little stiffly. “Leilani, stop introducing me as your partner.”

“What better word  _ is  _ there? We aren’t dating in the same way, but we are in a relationship.”

“You don’t have to tell  _ strangers  _ every detail of our relationship.” Avia’s tone was cold, and the words were clipped.

“Hey,” Priscilla said as she stepped in between them. “Chill. This is something you need to settle, but no need to argue.”

“Aquila, you don’t need to keep sticking your nose in other people’s business!” Avia snapped.

“Well,  _ maybe it is my business,  _ because you’re arguing in front of all of us!” Priscilla yelled back.

Avia, wordless, stepped away, taking their breakfast with them.

* * *

The rest ate breakfast in a tense silence.

Leilani was probably mad at her for snapping at Avia. The two of them stuck together, so it wouldn’t have really surprised her.

“I’m sorry,” Priscilla offered to the table.

“You’re saying it to the wrong person,” Leilani briskly replied.

“I know. I shouldn’t have snapped. I’m having some personal issues. That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation. I didn’t want to take it out on Avia, but it happened, and now I should talk to them about it. I don’t expect you to forgive me right now, but I hope you can let me plead my case to them.” Priscilla’s apology was formal, all business. But the words were heartfelt, and each of them was chosen to express what Priscilla wanted to say.

(She didn’t add anything about not wanting to be Aquila.

She’d come out in her own time.

She didn’t want to impact anything, didn’t want to enrage anyone too badly.

Not too much longer until they were going to reach shore.)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first original work I've published in a few years -- I'm a little rusty.
> 
> Follow me online:  
> alto-tenure - main Tumblr  
> the-river-of-light - visual art Tumblr  
> beunforgotten - writing Tumblr  
> riiveroflight - Twitter
> 
> Please leave a kudos/comment if you enjoyed, and feel free to ask me questions about this universe.


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